Sturgeon: I did not take Covid decisions for political reasons

1. Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has given evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry in Edinburgh
2. She says none of the decisions she made during the pandemic were based on political considerations or trying to advance the cause of independence
3. "I was motivated solely by trying to do the best we could to keep people as safe as possible," she says
4. Sturgeon denied that the government's strategy was based on her instincts and that decisions were made by her and a small band of trusted advisers
5. Earlier, she fought back tears as she said part of her wished she had not been first minister when the pandemic struck
6. The former first minister says she did not use informal communications like WhatsApp to reach decisions or to have substantial discussions
7. Sturgeon admits deleting her messages but says everything of relevance was available on the public record
8. The former first minister says she did not "jump the gun" on banning mass gatherings in March 2020 and that her only regret was not taking the decision earlier
9. Sturgeon denied that following an elimination strategy led to the Scottish government taking its eye off the ball and failing to prepare for a second wave of Covid in 2020

Sturgeon's evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry: The headlines

We've just had a mammoth evidence session at the UK Covid Inquiry, with Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Here's a recap of the headlines from today's session:

• Nicola Sturgeon told the Covid inquiry that one of her chief regrets was not locking down two weeks earlier at the start of the pandemic
• A tearful Sturgeon admitted that a large part of her wished she hadn't actually been Scotland's first minister when the pandemic struck
• She insisted none of the decisions she made in the pandemic were based on political considerations
• The former FM denied she made decisions on instinct and with a small band of trusted advisers

• Sturgeon also denied that there was an approach of secrecy during Covid and said that an early lack of testing did not reflect a lack of urgency felt by the government

Emotional Sturgeon on being FM in pandemic

• Sturgeon said that during some of the early days of the pandemic, she felt "fear" and at times was "overwhelmed by the scale" of what she had to deal with
• She also said Boris Johnson was the wrong person "full stop" to be prime minister of the UK
• In the morning session, the inquiry focused on the way Sturgeon and her cabinet used WhatsApp and other messaging platforms to conduct government business. Sturgeon insisted messaging was never a part of official government decision-making
• She admitted deleting her messages but said everything of relevance was available on the public record
• She also told the hearing that she thought "every day" about some of the decisions she'd had to make during the pandemic

Thank you for joining us today. We'll be back tomorrow morning at 10:00. The editors today were Paul McLaren, Nadia Ragozhina, Sam Hancock and Graeme Esson. The writers were Craig Hutchison, Ashleigh Keenan-Bryce, Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Gabriela Pomeroy, Ece Goksedef and Mattea Bubalo.

Watch: The key moments in Nicola Sturgeon's evidence

Covid inquiry: Key moments from Nicola Sturgeon's evidence

Nicola Sturgeon as we've rarely seen her before

James Cook

Scotland editor, at the inquiry

Recalling her role running the Scottish government during the pandemic appeared to be a raw, emotional and even traumatic experience for the former first minister.

Several times Nicola Sturgeon's voice faltered, and she wiped away tears, as she spoke of Covid in apocalyptic terms as a threat, a risk and a catastrophe.

At one point a courtroom aide walked forward to place a tissue on the desk in front of her.

The armies of lawyers with their laptops, relatives of some of those who were bereaved by Covid, and the only two journalists in the room at the time - one of whom was me - strained to catch her words as she said quietly and simply that any claim she had seen a political opportunity in the emergency was simply not true.

Neither the chair of the inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, nor the counsel asking the questions, Jamie Dawson KC, made any comment about her demeanour.

Instead, the questions from Dawson kept coming for the rest of the day.

Sturgeon led an orchestrated cover-up, says Scottish Tory leader

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has said Nicola's Sturgeon's "slippery performance" at the inquiry showed that she was "a discredited politician who betrayed bereaved families".

Ross said Sturgeon's claims that no decisions were taken in her deleted WhatsApps were repeatedly exposed by evidence to the contrary, and that her reputation and credibility "lie in ruins".

Despite her best efforts to spin, deflect and deny, Nicola Sturgeon could not escape two glaring realities: that she led an orchestrated cover-up of her government’s actions during the pandemic and that decision-making was motivated by the SNP’s political agenda."

Douglas RossScottish Conservative leader

Sturgeon 'shattered the trust' of Scottish Covid Bereaved

The Scottish Covid Bereaved held a press conference after Sturgeon finished her evidence.

Lead solicitor Aamer Anwar says that during the pandemic the former first minister projected "a daily image of sincerity, of wanting to do the right thing for Scotland".

He says that image has been left shattered.

Anwar adds that Sturgeon deprived the inquiry of evidence through the "industrial deletion of WhatsApps."

He says the former first minister has shattered the trust the Scottish Covid Bereaved had in her.

Watch: Sturgeon 'deeply sorry' to Covid bereaved

During that hours-long evidence session, Nicola Sturgeon said at one point she was “deeply sorry” to every person in Scotland who lost a loved one to Covid.

The former first minister said she and her government tried “to steer this country through the Covid pandemic in the best way we could”.

Watch the moment in full below:

Sturgeon 'deeply sorry' to Covid bereaved

Final questions focus on care homes

The inquiry's now finished for the day - but before it ended we heard questions from lawyer Kevin McCaffrey, acting on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved group. Here's a summary of what was said:

Q: He asked Sturgeon why she thought releasing people from hospitals to care homes, but only testing those with symptoms, provided any protection at all.

A: Sturgeon said there were concerns hospitals weren't a safe place for vulnerable people who didn't need to be there. The advice at that time, she said, was that isolation was the best way to protect people in care homes.

Q: Sturgeon was asked to give more details about the situation in care homes.

A: She said there were significant issues, including testing, and admitted that her government didn't do everything right which she "deeply regrets".

Q: The former first minister was asked about visits to care homes during the pandemic.

A: "That was an issue where we were always trying to strike a balance between opening up ... and guarding against infection," she said. "I don't think we got that right ... but it was not because we didn't try."

Q: Sturgeon was asked what she would've done differently.

A: Getting emotional again, she said she wishes she could "turn the clock back and do things that would have reduced the loss of life in care homes", but added that it wouldn't have changed the fact people in hospitals were still at risk.

Sturgeon indignant at idea she politicised the pandemic

Kirsten Campbell

BBC Scotland political correspondent

Nicola Sturgeon has utterly rejected suggestions she politicised the Covid pandemic. She is indignant at the very idea.

What is undeniable is that both the SNP and the Conservatives have used what happened during that time subsequently in their political campaigning.

The SNP have pointed to Sturgeon's leadership during that period and highlighted why control of the financial levers in an Independent Scotland would have made it easier to make lockdown decisions.

The Conservatives have stressed the benefits of the union in terms of the vaccine rollout and furlough payments.

It'll be for the inquiry to decide whether politics played a factor in government decision making, though.

'I did my best'

Sturgeon's asked if the "story of Covid in Scotland is the story of the hubris of Nicola Sturgeon", to which she says no, it's not.

Again visibly upset, she says with a sometimes shaky voice: that she wishes with "every fibre of my being that the decisions my government had been able to take could have reduced the number of people in Scotland who did lose someone to Covid".

"I am deeply sorry to each and every bereaved person and each and every person who suffered," she says, close to tears.

"I tried my best and those working with me tried their best to steer this country through the Covid pandemic in the best way we could."

Sturgeon again denies using Covid to advance Scottish independence

Once again, inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson suggests to Nicola Sturgeon that her instinct as a politician is born from a desire to advance the cause of Scottish independence.

"I don't think I'm breaking any news today to say that I have spent a lifetime campaigning for independence," she responds. "I will no doubt continue to campaign for independence. I know I will."

But she again insists this never impacted her decision making during the pandemic:

People will make their own judgments about me, about my government, about my decisions but for as long as I live I will carry the impact of these decisions.

I will carry regret at the decisions and judgements I got wrong, but I will always know in my heart and in my soul that my instincts and my motivation was nothing other than trying to do the best in the face of this pandemic."

Was Scotland's Covid strategy run on Sturgeon's instincts?

The focus of the inquiry turns to the Euro 2020 Championship and messages between then Health Secretary Humza Yousaf and Professor Jason Leitch in June 2021.

Leitch writes that Nicola Sturgeon's instinct would be to ban the Euro fanzone and there is discussion about the cost of cancellation (around £6m), to which Yousaf writes that having known Sturgeon for 15 years "it is not often her instincts are wrong".

Sturgeon says the fanzone wasn't cancelled so her instinct did not govern the decision, and explains on the basis of advice that she was persuaded her instinct was not what the Scottish government should go with.

Asked if the Scottish government's pandemic strategy often ran on her instincts, Sturgeon answers "no" and says she followed advice from experts in both the Scottish and UKs governments; she says she couldn't have come to the decisions she did without their help.

Reuters

Italy went on to win the Euro 2020 competition

Tearful Sturgeon says she takes some questions personally

Covid inquiry

We've just seen more emotion in the inquiry room.

Becoming visibly upset when grilled about the motivation for her decisions, the former first minister says she was only ever trying to "protect people and to minimise harm in all of its forms".

She also acknowledges that those decisions deserve to be scrutinised as closely as possible."

Holding back tears, she says:

I take it very, very, personally when people question these motives. Because I know that the motives were... absolutely in good faith and for the best reasons."

She adds that the toll Covid took in Scotland, and in other parts of the UK, was "far too high" - but denies that she hoped to be the person who drove it out of the country.

Elimination or eradication?

Lisa Summers

BBC Scotland health correspondent

Nicola Sturgeon has been asked frequently about how she communicated the risks of Covid infection. But in the summer of 2020, there were a number of changes to restrictions that may have appeared confusing for the public.

In July, people in Scotland who travelled from Spain were required to quarantine, while those flying into England did not. That decision was reversed just a few weeks later.

On 31 July, Sturgeon held a daily briefing where she advised people not to travel to parts of northern England where cases were on the rise. She said the government's strategic objective was the elimination of Covid - "in other words, to drive prevalence of the virus to as a low as level as possible and keep it there".

Sturgeon has just told the inquiry that elimination is not the same as eradication and she felt the public had a sophisticated understating of what she meant.

Chair intervenes to clarify difference between 'eradication' and 'elimination'

Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson, asking questions, puts it to Nicola Sturgeon that her "language of elimination of eradication rather than maximum suppression" around Covid - when cases fell in the summer of 2020 - gave people the impression that "Covid was over".

Sturgeon says she never used the term "eradication" and that people in Scotland understood Covid hadn't gone away.

Dawson challenges her, saying she knew "perfectly well" that people jumped on holiday flights to Spain, causing the second wave. She maintains she was cautious around travel to places, including Spain, and that many people holidayed at home.

Baroness Hallett challenges Sturgeon on a statement she makes about eradication and elimination not meaning the same thing. "Eradication means you get to a point where the disease has gone away and is not a risk anymore," Sturgeon responds. "Elimination effectively doesn't mean it has gone away, you are taking measures to try to keep it at a level."

The inquiry's chair says it seems as though people were playing fast and loose with language.

Sturgeon on striving for zero-Covid

Onto a new topic, Sturgeon is now being asked for her views on a zero-Covid policy.

The former first minister says "at no point" did she believe the virus could be eliminated without a vaccine. But she goes on to say that in the days before one was available, the government needed to suppress it far as possible to protect life and to create the conditions to open up the economy.

And the best way to do that was to drive as close to zero as possible, she tells the inquiry.

For context: During the pandemic, China maintained a zero-Covid policy, where entire communities were locked down over single cases of the virus, in order to prevent it from spreading.

Sturgeon admits tweet about Johnson's Scotland trip not good idea

We're looking at a tweet from Nicola Sturgeon, in response to Boris Johnson's visit to Scotland on 23 July 2020, in which she says one of the "key arguments for independence" is highlighted by the then UK prime minister's visit.

Sturgeon says this was a response to Johnson's team describing his visit as a mission to save the UK.

She insists that she believes, generally, the UK government did not intend to politicise the pandemic - but "this was an exception."

She concedes hers was a political tweet:

On reflection should I have risen to the bait and posted that tweet? Probably not. But I would never even have been in that space at all but for the pretext of the prime minister's visit.

Perhaps I should have been the bigger person and not reacted with that tweet."

Inquiry lawyer pushes Sturgeon on Spanish travel data

Back now to questions about Scotland easing restrictions on travelling to Spain in the summer of 2020.

Sturgeon says it was health data that initially led her government to do this, before that data changed days later and she reversed the decision.

She is pressed on her interpretation of the data by the inquiry lawyer, given she then had to reverse her decision and bring back restrictions - which didn't go down well with Scottish airports.

Sturgeon again repeats that in all the decisions that were taken by her government, she hopes some were right, others might have been proven wrong since, but she asserts that "none of them were driven by extraneous political considerations".

Watch: Sturgeon denies taking decisions for 'political reasons'

While Sturgeon continues to give evidence to the Covid inquiry, here's some footage from earlier which shows her denying taking any decisions during the pandemic for political reasons.

In particular, she said she had never let her desire for Scottish independence play a part in her actions during the health crisis.

Watch the moment in full below:

Sturgeon says she didn't take decisions for 'political reasons'

Email about EU membership shown to inquiry

We've just been shown an email sent in July 2020, which Nicola Sturgeon was copied into.

It states that Spain should be added to the travel exemption list as no "matter how much ministers might justify" it not being there on health grounds, "the Spanish government will conclude it is entirely political".

Spain "won't forget - there is a real possibility they won't approve EU membership for independent Scotland as a result," the email adds.

Sturgeon says decisions were taken for public health reasons, adding that she didn't have any discussions around decisions being influenced by the possibility of EU membership.

• The Scottish goverment clarified after the hearing that the message had been written by a civil servant.

Former FM explains issues with enforcing travel curbs

BBC

Following a brief recess, former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is giving examples of areas in which there was some alignment between the Scottish and UK governments during the pandemic.

One of those being discussed is border controls and foreign travel - but she admits there were sometimes practicalities that made enforcing rules tough.

"If there were differences between the two nations, people who wanted to avoid restrictions in, say, Glasgow Airport could fly to London and travel up by rail or road," she explains.